LEILA FADEL, HOST:
What do you get when you mix the plotlines of "Mad Men" and "Sex And The City"? Our next guest has some ideas. Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas is the author of "Climbing In Heels," a new novel that follows the precarious path of three women secretaries at Hollywood's hottest agency in the 1980s. It just came out, and it's already being developed into a TV series. It's Goldsmith-Thomas' debut novel, but she knows Hollywood. She was an agency executive, studio partner and producer. And she started, like her characters in this book, as a secretary. And she joins me now. Elaine, welcome.
ELAINE GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Thanks, Leila.
FADEL: So this book is a ride. There's backstabbing, illicit affairs, men using their power to take advantage of women. And there was this one line about the three main characters that stood out to me - they were women trying to rewrite a rulebook for a place that didn't recognize them as players. Elaine, if you could, just describe these three women at the heart of the novel and what they're navigating.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: You know, I like to think of it as a story of friendship, of survival...
FADEL: Yeah.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: ...Of betrayal, of standing up when they walk by, of saying I won't quit when they want you gone. But it's also the story about how some of those women inadvertently become very much like the monsters they worked for. And I try not to judge these characters. It was the terrain in front of them. It was the mountain in front of them, and they wanted to break through. And all three of them had a few things in common.
FADEL: Yeah.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: But Beanie especially cannot, will not, take no. No just means try again and yes means love.
FADEL: And Beanie is the character that really wants to be an agent. She's going to find a way in, even though every answer is, no, women don't get to be agents.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: It's the sliver of hope that she hangs on to. It's the idea that if you try right, if you do it again, if you can make them see you, you can show them how smart you are, even if you don't look the part. And in the '80s, there wasn't a girls club.
FADEL: Let's talk about that because you broke in in the '80s.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Yeah. Yeah.
FADEL: And you started as a secretary, right, at the William Morris Agency?
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Oh, yeah.
FADEL: So is this how it was for women then? Because in your book, the male agents refer to secretaries as sexetaries, and God forbid they get a secretary with a degree and ambition. They're just looking for women they're attracted to.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Well, you weren't allowed - I mean, first of all, not all of them were like this. And some of this is - most of it is completely made up, but some of it isn't. You realize that people like Harvey Weinstein were not the exception. They were the rule.
FADEL: Wow.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: While they would get their hand slapped sometimes, the bad boys, they were secretly celebrated by the boys on the first floor who had their days in the '60s, when they were the raucous young bucks. So, again, it's fictional, but some of it isn't.
FADEL: So how did you break in? I mean, you ended up with this incredible career, working with Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Nicolas Cage, so many others.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: First of all, I would say that I stood on the shoulders of some remarkable women. And I had a rather abusive boss, and it was difficult at times. And I was able to survive it barely, but it was difficult and ingrained in my memory. But the more they said no, the more I wanted it. I knew I would be a good agent.
FADEL: You know, your novel is described as sexy and smart and entertaining, and it is all of those things. But it's hard to read in moments, reading the way women are contorting themselves to be what a man wants to try to have the things she wants in life, which is in places what these women are doing. How did you navigate writing about this darker side of Hollywood, including sexual assault and that sort of whisper network everybody knows and men are celebrated for?
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: I decided to tell the truth. And I could only have the truth through my experiences, right? I decided to tell it.
FADEL: Yeah.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Do I have time to tell you my Bill Cosby story?
FADEL: Yes, tell me your Bill Cosby story. I was going to ask about that.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: So Mr. Cosby was giving a luncheon for the secretaries at William Morris - very nice of him - because his show was such a success, and I was invited. And again, when you're a secretary, you just say you want to be a secretary because if personnel finds out, oops, you can lose your job, or so I believed. So I was there, and he came up to me. And, you know, I had a name tag. He goes, Elaine, tell me about you. Where did you go to college? And I said, Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara. Wow, what do you want to do with your life? I said, you know, I want to be a secretary. Really? You went to those two universities, you want to be a secretary? Come on. What do you want to do?
And I said, you want to know what I want to do? He said yeah. I said, I want to be an agent. I want to be the best agent that ever lived, and I want to represent you someday. And I want you to say she was the best there ever was. And he laughed out loud, and then he left. And later on, I got a call from one of the executive secretaries on the first floor who said to me, Mr. Cosby has some contracts and has asked that you come to his hotel room and wait for him to sign them.
FADEL: No way.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: And I was so excited. I was like, yes. And I went to the bathroom, and I was fluffing my hair or whatever.
FADEL: Oh, no.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: And the secretary to the president of the agency walked in and said don't do it.
FADEL: Wow.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Now, she didn't say anything untoward would happen. She just said you want to be an agent, and anybody else who's ever done anything with him or for him, they always end up - you know, he helps them get other jobs, I think she said.
FADEL: And knowing what we know now, though...
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Right. But she scared me. And she scared me enough that I just didn't do it and regretted it forever until I realized I would've been the person who said, yeah, I'll have another Kool-Aid (laughter).
FADEL: Yeah.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: You know, I would've been, because I felt so seen by him.
FADEL: Yeah.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Isn't that interesting?
FADEL: Which is so much of what's in your book. And you do so well in this book seeing the way that these power dynamics are abused and the way that people have to navigate them also abuse them back. Like, OK, if this is what I have to do, let me figure out how to create the rulebook that works for me.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: Yeah, the strategy, because it is strategy. The people behind the people are the ones that hold their legacies and their secrets. And this is a book about the people behind the people.
FADEL: And the secrets.
GOLDSMITH-THOMAS: And the secrets.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAM GENDEL AND NATE MERCEREAU'S "THE VILAGE")
FADEL: That was Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, author of the novel "Climbing In Heels." More than 60 women have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault. In 2018, he was found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home. Citing a violation of his due process rights, that conviction was overturned in 2021. Cosby has maintained his innocence.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAM GENDEL AND NATE MERCEREAU'S "THE VILAGE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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